Hundreds of worshippers lifted their heads and raised their hands as water blasted down from fire hoses during a symbolic street baptism in South Los Angeles. The mass baptism on Sunday was organized by the United House of Prayer for All People, one of the nation's largest black denominations, as part of its 80th annual Holy Convocation. The 3-million-member organization has held outdoor baptisms with fire hoses in Eastern cities such as New York and Philadelphia, but this was the first street baptism for California, according to church officials. "It's a baptizing for the city of Los Angeles," said Pearl Fuquay, who lost one son and is trying to raise another in a gang-racked neighborhood known as the Jungle. "It's a cleaning of the city." All members of the local organization were encouraged to take part, even those who had already been baptized.... http://www.foxnews.com

Violence raked Baghdad Monday as an Iraqi general took charge of the security operation in the capital and Iraqi police and soldiers manned new roadblocks — initial steps indicating the start of the long-anticipated joint operation with American forces to curb sectarian bloodshed.At least 31 people died in bomb and mortar attacks across the city Monday, 15 of them as they waited to refill propane cooking tanks when two car bombs blew up in quick succession in south Baghdad.The violence was a sign of the difficulty facing the push that eventually will be able to call upon on as many as 90,000 American and Iraqi troops and police in a third attempt to calm the capital in nine months. The command center, staffed by Iraqis and Americans, opened Monday inside the U.S.-controlled Green Zone next to the prime minister's office....http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,250310,00.html

U.S. Capitol Police Chief Phillip Morse met privately yesterday with a senator and denied that he ordered officers not to arrest war protesters who painted slogans on the sidewalk near the Capitol. Chief Morse conceded shortcomings in the police response Saturday at the protest against the Iraq war, however, and vowed to revise plans for managing demonstrations, Sen. Wayne Allard said after meeting with the chief. "There was no order to retreat [or] not arrest anybody," said Mr. Allard, Colorado Republican. "He had ordered them that if they saw anybody breaking the law, they were to arrest them. ... They did not see them paint the graffiti." The chief's pledge to review department policy follows public complaints that protesters painted anarchist symbols and slogans on the Capitol sidewalk Saturday right in front of Capitol Police officers....http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20070130-114007-1417r.htm

An influential Israeli Cabinet minister called Monday for Israel to release Marwan Barghouti a hugely popular Palestinian leader jailed on murder charges in an effort to prop up Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in his rivalry with Hamas. Abbas' moderate Fatah party and the Islamic militant Hamas have engaged in bitter fighting since Hamas won parliamentary elections last year, dividing the Palestinian government. More than 130 Palestinians have been killed in the fighting, including three who died Monday from wounds sustained in recent days. Repeated efforts to form a national unity government have foundered, but Abbas and Hamas exiled leader Khaled Mashaal are to meet in the holy Muslim city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday to attempt to reach a power-sharing agreement and end the fighting. Many see the meeting as a last chance for the Palestinians to avoid civil war. ...http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2850543

A German court on Monday ruled that police cannot remotely search criminal suspects' computer hard drives over the Internet without their knowledge. The decision of the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe bars police from using the online "Trojan horse" method, which involves using a computer program to search through remote hard drives over an Internet connection, unless parliament passes a law explicitly allowing it. Police will still be allowed to seize evidence from computer hard drives when conducting searches in person. Arguing that stealth searches were indispensable to investigating criminals and terrorists, Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, the country's top security official responsible for police, called for the government to go ahead and seek swift changes in the law. ...http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=2850515

The family of an Iraq war veteran who killed himself is disputing Veterans Affairs records that indicate he failed to tell hospital officials he was thinking of suicide. Jonathan Schulze's father and stepmother, Jim and Marianne Schulze, said they heard their 25-year-old son tell staff members at a VA hospital that he was suicidal. He killed himself Jan. 16. "The most disturbing part for me is their denial of Jon's suicidal condition," said Jim Schulze, who has read nearly 400 pages of records, mostly from counseling his son received at the Minneapolis Veterans Medical Center in St. Cloud after he returned from Iraq in 2004. Veterans Affairs officials in Minnesota wouldn't comment on the records or on any dealings with Jonathan Schulze, said Joan Vincent, the VA's public affairs officer in St. Cloud. ...http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=2850509